eric789fal
Frigid
CMQ 9011 was a good un-refurbished counterpart to the trio of overhauled CP 9021-23 Red Barns undertaking their pilot runs on revenue freight (seen here) based in Moose Jaw from November 2022 to April 2023 so that Canadian Pacific could assess performance differences across 9011 and 9021-23.
In the last weeks of 2022 through the New Year, the pattern was that the red barns would continue to demonstrate themselves with runs on the Bulyea Sub, since these runs often involved lots of switching, variable speeds, and intense grades sometimes with fully loaded grainers behind them. CMQ 9011 was meanwhile used occaisonally for the Regina turn E44 when it used to originate in Moose Jaw, likely borne out of crew preferences during the harshest winter conditions. Although this day in particular was forgiving temperature-wise, sitting around -17C when E44-06 was on duty, the southwesterly winds were cruising at 25 km/h, bringing the windchill down to a more prairie standard -30C. Having naively parked the car on the opposite side of the tracks and hopping out glove-less, I had my one-and-only frostbite incident whilst trackside thus far. I had also forgotten to bring my charger with me during the break, so despite buying a new battery, this was one of the last images my shutter was able to handle before the battery pack was lost to the cold temperatures and ice crystals formed on my telephoto lens as they departed Regina here.
My winter break back home wasn't long enough to fully captivate the experience of having a quartet of cowls assigned to Moose Jaw, as rumors from crews I've talked to claim that there were in fact a few operations of 4 barns all together when they had to lift a potential 301 originating from terminals on the Bulyea Sub earlier in December, unlike the trio which simply had to spot for customers. 2 days prior to this and 3 days after the infamous new-years run, there was a more credible conjecture that CP 5875 pre-repaint, assigned to the Lanigan Sub as extra power, ran paired with the red barn trio also to lift a grainer as follow-up to the spotter, though I was unable to verify this while catching up with friends and family instead.
Frigid
CMQ 9011 was a good un-refurbished counterpart to the trio of overhauled CP 9021-23 Red Barns undertaking their pilot runs on revenue freight (seen here) based in Moose Jaw from November 2022 to April 2023 so that Canadian Pacific could assess performance differences across 9011 and 9021-23.
In the last weeks of 2022 through the New Year, the pattern was that the red barns would continue to demonstrate themselves with runs on the Bulyea Sub, since these runs often involved lots of switching, variable speeds, and intense grades sometimes with fully loaded grainers behind them. CMQ 9011 was meanwhile used occaisonally for the Regina turn E44 when it used to originate in Moose Jaw, likely borne out of crew preferences during the harshest winter conditions. Although this day in particular was forgiving temperature-wise, sitting around -17C when E44-06 was on duty, the southwesterly winds were cruising at 25 km/h, bringing the windchill down to a more prairie standard -30C. Having naively parked the car on the opposite side of the tracks and hopping out glove-less, I had my one-and-only frostbite incident whilst trackside thus far. I had also forgotten to bring my charger with me during the break, so despite buying a new battery, this was one of the last images my shutter was able to handle before the battery pack was lost to the cold temperatures and ice crystals formed on my telephoto lens as they departed Regina here.
My winter break back home wasn't long enough to fully captivate the experience of having a quartet of cowls assigned to Moose Jaw, as rumors from crews I've talked to claim that there were in fact a few operations of 4 barns all together when they had to lift a potential 301 originating from terminals on the Bulyea Sub earlier in December, unlike the trio which simply had to spot for customers. 2 days prior to this and 3 days after the infamous new-years run, there was a more credible conjecture that CP 5875 pre-repaint, assigned to the Lanigan Sub as extra power, ran paired with the red barn trio also to lift a grainer as follow-up to the spotter, though I was unable to verify this while catching up with friends and family instead.